Image Attribution: “Vancouver Humane society, Visa 1500 2021” by Vancouver Humane society is licensed under CC0. (See interactive map)
David Bravo
VISA 1500
Dr. Terryl Atkins
September 24th, 2021
Assignment 1, Part A
In the hot summer of 2018, on one of the main streets of Vancouver downtown, surprisingly, I saw this advertisement from Vancouver humane society. A baby pig and little kid playing together create a uniquely calm atmosphere around the picture’s environment. The VHS is a recognizable Canadian charity known for educating the Vancouver community about animal protection, animal rights, and moral values between humans and animals.
The image advertising on the Trans link vehicle is perfectly sharpened with green contrast grassland, making the two subjects a main focus to the viewer. In the left corner, we can see the young kid smiling at piglet as the main subject of the advertisement; evidently, the picture highlights two important aspects in which are the kid and the piglet but also the bold letters on the bus poster, where it is written “friend, not food” and continuing below when “we were children we knew”, grabbing the attention of the passenger or the passerby. The highlight letters are easy to notice without paying too much attention to the vehicle. The whole context tells the viewer about concerning of the farmed animals are not food but just friends.
Certainty, the image is trying to convince us as “the viewer” the importance of the relationship between humans and animals, the advertisements on transit vehicles in Vancouver must be adequate to the standards of Translink advertising policy in which must be reviewed by the transit company and other people who have the authority. The advertisement aims to present a friendly environment instead of showing aggressive elements of abuse animals, which is particularly common to see on social media.
The city of Vancouver is well known for being one of the greenest cities in all North America as well for having a large vegetarian population, some organizations such as Vancouver vegetarian society desires to demonstrate the positive effects of being vegetarian, nonetheless, some passersby who might seem the advertising would not convince them of not eating a piece of steak at any restaurant nearby.
The exact location of this image was on Burrard St next to the Skytrain station; the 95 bus route is one of the busiest routes that go from downtown all the way to SFU, which makes the advertising been seen by many people across downtown. Personally, this billboard does not have any effect on me as I consider myself no vegetarian, and besides it I was not familiar with the charity and the organization of this advertisement
Works Cited:
“About Us.” Vancouver Vegetarian Society, https://vancouvervegetariansociety.com/about/.
“Mission & Vision Statements.” Vancouver Humane Society, 22 Sept. 2020, https://vancouverhumanesociety.bc.ca/about/mission-and-vision-statements/.
“TransLink Advertising Policy.” TransLink, https://www.translink.ca/resources/translink/about%20translink/doing%20business%20with%20translink/commercial%20partnerships/translink_advertising_policy.